McKinsey Hires Rajat Gupta

From Rajat Gupta's interview in Business Today.

Why did you choose McKinsey?

McKinsey was important, and willing to talk to me. We had two interviews, back to back, on campus. The second was conducted by Bill Clemens, who was then head of recruiting in McKinsey's New York office. He told me that my credentials were terrific. "And you're obviously very smart, but you need to go and work somewhere else for three or four years before we'll consider you." I was, obviously, not very happy with that. One of my professors, Walter Salmon, who was a classmate of Ron Daniel, who then ran McKinsey's New York office, wrote to him to reconsider the decision. Then, I was invited to a full day of interviews at the New York office and, eventually, offered a job.

Alternate Perspective on Rajat Gupta's Hiring

It is unlikely that McKinsey was hiring only candidates with work experience. It that was the case, not only would it have mentioned this on its recruitment brochures but also wouldn’t have interviewed Gupta after seeing his resume. It appears that Bill Clemens was not impressed with Rajat Gupta’s credentials and decided to turn him down. Informing Gupta that he should work for a few years before McKinsey would consider him was his way of telling Gupta that the door was not completely shut on him in the sense that he was never going to be hired by McKinsey, but he needed to provide more evidence to the company regarding his worth. Regarding his mentioning Gupta’s credentials being terrific et cetera, this is the standard practice in the American society to reject very nicely so as to “soften the blow” and not to burn any bridges. Those kind words should not be taken seriously because if Bill Clemens really thought that, instead of rejecting Rajat Gupta, he would have invited him for an interview at New York.

What did Rajat Gupta do the? It appears that he contacted professor Walter Salmon, who wrote to Ron Daniel, the head of McKinsey’s New York office to override Bill Clemens’ decision. Let’s consider the implications of this.

Harvard Business School was one of the most powerful business schools in the world and its professors are similarly so. Here we have Rajat Gupta, an orphaned and poor young student from an underdeveloped country asking him to write to the powerful McKinsey to take the rare decision of overturning its recruitment head’s decision. Did Gupta stand out in some way to create such an impression on Walter Salmon that he would have done such a thing?

There is no doubt that Rajat Gupta is brilliant. My guess is that he was in the top 10% of his class which itself is quite remarkable. However, given the vastness of Harvard Business School’s student body (a few hundreds), its above-average achievement level , and Gupta’s tendency of keeping quite (“Another thing is that Indians typically don't speak up that much, which you must at business school. I was very reticent in class. “) in a school which is a symbol of case studies and class discussions, it is hard to see (based on publicly-stated facts) what would have prompted Salmon to take such a drastic action. (I will add my guess here later.)

Once Ron Daniel got the letter, Gupta was “invited to a full day of interviews at the New York office and, eventually, offered a job.” Let’s face it, there was no need to spend money for that, McKinsey could have as well hired him without any further interviews.